Moving From Event Lighting Engineer To Electrician - Advice Appreciated

[simonplights]

Hi everyone,

Sorry for asking for advice with my first post, I'll try and be more active after this! Also, I'm not sure if this or the Jobs forum is the best place for this, please let me know if it should be moved.

I'm looking to change careers and I'd appreciate a little un-biased insight into the life of a working sparky, rather than advice from a training provider who would love to sign you up for their course.

I'm Simon, I currently work as a lighting technician/designer in the live events game. However I have a large electronics/electrical bias as well. As much as I like working on shows, there is huge competition for what is actually very little work, and some parts of the year (like now!) are completely dead.

So, one idea is to retrain in something electrical. I have a good local training provider for the 2365 L2/L3 + 2357 etc, however to get all training, registrations, meters etc paid for is around £9k.

I need a job that has a high technical/design/problem solving bias rather than a physical bias, which I'm worried I might get bored with. Complex LED control circuitry would be my thing, not bending conduit.

Therefore, I'd appreciate if a few people could answer the following questions:

•  Out of an average day on the job, how much time do you spend doing actual electrical tasks (fault finding, terminating, testing etc) and how much time doing other physical tasks involved (chasing walls, bending conduit)?

•  When a large job (new large house build, factory lighting system upgrade) is being planned, who creates all the drawings and wiring diagrams that the guys on the tools use on site?

• (Probably more of a commercial/industrial question) how much time do you spend wiring signal/data/low voltage control systems compared to mains voltage systems? HVAC control, machinery control, lighting control etc - is this someone else's gig or do you do this?

• How much potential is there to get involved with LED lighting on jobs? I really like the idea of designing colour-mixing LED systems as part of installations, including the control/PWM dimming, user interfaces etc.

• How lucrative really is the job market? As a newly qualified electrician, is there really enough work around or is it quite competitive to keep work flowing?

Apologies for the huge post. Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Cheers,

Simon

 

[Andy™]

i would answer your questions, but everyone who replies will have a completely different answer, so you wont get anything useful. and everyone who is employed will have a completely different answers to someone self employed.  except for the last question: probably the same amount of work as your currently have

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

I can't tell from your post if you are currently employed / self employed and/or if you are looking to be employed / self employed ??

If you are looking at starting up on your own in a different field of work then really it is your potential target customer base you need to research not other traders...

As Andy said other electricians will give loads of different answers dependent upon how they have chosen to run their business...

A lot of business start-ups fail within 5 years, (I think statistic used to be 2/3 or 3/5 fail)

So of those 1/3 or 2/5 that do succeed more of them do because they have the business model right..

not the actual nuts and bolts of the every day job..    (or qualifications that you may or may not have)

Its the marketing, and knowing your customers that is the key...  

What / Who are your potential customers?

At the end of the day it is customers who will pay you money not other traders!

If you are just expecting to start from scratch with no existing customers there to get you up and running then its going to be a very hard slog...  possibly with limited success? 

Have a look at how a lot of other business start-up..

often its doing work whilst also employed then finding that your extra "hobby" "personal interest" work is taking up more and more time so you take the plunge and leave employment..

Just because someone else is doing a job in an area does not mean other customers would come to you instead..

A florists opened a few years ago down the road, it closed again within a couple of years...

Yet before and still running now is another florist not much further away down another road... 

Customers are there...

Another trader had a good varied job and was succedding..

BUT the new one didn't???

You have got to be sure of your potential customers More than how or what others are doing...

Guinness

 

[simonplights]

Ok, fair enough, that might not be the best way to approach it.

I'm currently self employed, and once I'm qualified I would expect to be looking at some years of employment at an electrical contractor before potentially starting out on my own. I know that changes the context of my questions quite a bit.

I think I need to research businesses in my area and how many of them are offering/undertaking more complex technical installations as well as just standard mains wiring.

Thanks for the replies

 

[Evans Electric]

I wonder if you'd be better sticking with what you know & understand .   

I doubt if you'd get a job with an electrical contractor to be honest  ( no offence) but they'd be looking for experience .  

Don't forget there are different types of electricians too  some are :--

Domestic only

Domestic & commercial.

Industrial , commercial but not domestic

Industrial only

Panel building

Industrial breakdowns but not installation

 

[New Venture!]

Hi there,

I've moved from industry to domestic recently, so can give you an update on my experience pre and post self employed if that might help...

1) I've not had an average day so far. You may well start off with what seems a simple test/fault finder and end up chasing a wall to put it right. (Example I had was RCD tripping when customer turned on new wall lights installed as part of a "redecoration." Installer had taken the live from the lighting circuit but neutral from socket ringmain. That needed the dirty side of the job to fix the fault.)

2) The large new commercial jobs I worked on were all specified and drawn off-site by electrical design engineers. The designs I did were changes to existing installs, or upgrades to fix subsequent failures.

3) It depends! One project I worked on was a theatre, but each person had their own specialist area. I didn't touch the controllers, my responsibility was the three phase distribution to feed each hoist/grid.

4) Hmmm........the little experience I have of this, established lighting directors tended to specify the colours and units, then pass on what they wanted to a designer. The hands on install was then carried out by companies such as White Light or Neg Earth.

5) Not much! I'm putting food on the table but you have to chase work, not be at all precious about what you do, and do a very good job first time. Word of mouth is everything.

I've been approached about rewiring an old cottage, with the instruction it must involve minimal damage to the house. Owner happy to pay whatever time it takes. This type of specialist work can help you reputation-wise.

Good luck!